Sunday, February 14, 2010

Unit of the Einstein

After watching Avatar, I started thinking about the ship (the Venture Star) and how it got to Alpha Centauri. The ship is suppose to use a matter-antimatter drive that is sub-light in speed. The crew was suspended for the six year flight. Assuming a constant speed (this means the acceleration to speed was pretty fast), it had to travel at 0.7 the speed of light (0.7c).

The relativistic effects of this a speed is calculated with the equation, sq-rt[1-(v/c)^2]. Plugging in the values I get,sq-rt[1-(.7/1)^2]sq-rt[1-0.7^2]sq-rt[1-0.49]sq-rt[.51]0.71

This meansTime passed 71% as fast for the crewThe Venture Star contracted to 71% of its length (it acually gets little more complicated)Mass of the Venture Star and crew increased by 1.4 times (1/0.71) at speed.

I propose we give the number 0.71 the unit of the Einstein. So the ship traveled at a speed of 0.7c and the crew experienced a relativistic effect of 0.71 E.

At the speed of light, photons experience 0.0E while we traveling at nearly no speed experience 1.0 Einsteins of relativistic effect.

Perhaps Es could be integrated to account for the time the ship spent accelerating to speed. If so, the crew experienced less than 0.71 E of integrated relativisitic effects (would the unit be labled Ei?). Their maximum would still be 0.71 E.